Ginseng is a plant belonging to the genus Panax, and the root thereof is used for medicinal purposes.
Ginsenosides that are active ingredients present in ginseng are attributable to the medicinal effects of ginseng. Ginsenosides can be classified into three types, i.e., protopanaxadiol-type ginsenosides, protopanaxatriol-type ginsenosides, and oleanane-type ginsenosides according to the structure of ginsenoside aglycone. Ginsenoside derivatives are compounds wherein sugars such as glucose, rhamnose, xylose or arabinose are ester-bonded to the alcoholic OH groups of R1, R2 and R3 of protopanaxadiol or protopanaxatriol that is a triterpene aglycone. The major ginsenosides of ginseng, which are currently known, include about 13 common ginsenosides and about 11 rare ginsenosides known to be converted therefrom.
Ginseng may be used in various forms, including fresh ginseng, white ginseng prepared by drying fresh ginseng, and red ginseng prepared by steaming fresh ginseng.
As is known in the art, fresh ginseng mainly is composed of glycosides ginsenosides, such as Rg1, Re, Rb1, Rb2, Rc, Rd and the like, and processed ginseng may contain increased amounts of rare ginsenosides, such as Rg3, Rh1, Rh2 and Compound K, which are rarely present in fresh ginseng.
Recently many studies have been actively conducted to further increase the content of ginseng saponins present only in processed ginseng products.
Red ginseng, a representative processed ginseng product, may be prepared by steaming fresh, and during the preparation, glycosides bonded to the C-20 position of ginsenoside aglycone, which is chemically unstable, may be hydrolyzed. The amount of ginsenosides such as Rh1, Rh2, Rg2, Rg3 and the like in red ginseng processed by this procedure is larger than that of ginsenosides in fresh ginseng or white ginseng. However, ginsenoside Rh2, a type of rare ginsenoside, is known to be present in a very small amount even in red ginseng.
Since it was reported that the effects of pharmacologically active ingredients of such processed ginseng products on cancer prevention, cancer suppression, blood pressure lowering, protection of brain neurons, anti-thrombosis, antioxidant activities, etc., are better than those of ginseng containing the common ginsenosides, various methods have been attempted to obtain rare ginsenosides which are might be present in processed ginseng. The most well-known methods include methods of increasing the contents of specific ginsenosides either by using microorganisms or by hydrolyzing ginseng saponins with acid and enzyme.
Under this background, the present inventors have found that the contents of desired specific ginsenosides in cambial meristematic cells derived from genus Panax can be increased by a method comprising culturing cambial meristematic cells derived from genus Panax and heat-treating the cultured cambial meristematic cells derived from genus Panax, thereby completing the present invention.
The information disclosed in the Background Art section is only for the enhancement of understanding of the background of the present invention, and therefore may not contain information that forms a prior art that would already be known to a person of ordinary skill in the art.